Garden & Gleaning

Many people take food for granted, assuming they can purchase whatever they need at any time. However, obtaining fresh, quality produce can be difficult for those living far away from grocery stores, as well as people of low wealth, people experiencing home insecurity, and people facing other hardships. Additionally, people who live in cities often have little connection to their food supply, not knowing how to grow food or what their food even looks like before it’s harvested and packaged. We at NCFA believe that a strong connection to food improves the health of our communities and its members.

This is why we build and maintain community gardens in neighborhoods with restricted access to fresh foods in the Twin Cities. These gardens do not follow the traditional model of leasing out parcels to individuals; rather, everything is communally worked, and the produce is free for community members to enjoy. We also offer donation-based workshops, giving people the opportunity to learn how to grow their own healthy food, and hold neighborhood events to bring people together. Any surplus produce is given away completely free-of-charge to Metro Area food shelves, homeless shelters, and soup kitchens.

When NCFA first began, we built gardens at our office and in community member’s yards; but our program has since expanded. In 2020 we established a partnership with the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority to garden at Charles Horn Towers, which has a large Somali population. We transferred stewardship of this site to the Somali American Farmers Association in 2021. We also leased garden space at a formerly vacant lot owned by the city of Minneapolis and managed the garden at our office location in South Minneapolis.